Page 171 of When The Night Falls

He looked at his hands, nodding, and the sight of him right then made my eyes grow moist with tears. He looked so defeated.

‘I thought as much. When did you first sleep together?’

My face crinkled. I knew it would hurt him to know these things, and I wanted to spare him from it. But, at the same time, I owed it to him to be honest, and if it could help him reach closure, I would find solace in that.

‘In April.’

His brow arched again, but still he didn’t look at me. ‘That time you went for drinks with Livy?’

I released a heavy breath, but it didn’t lessen the ache in my chest. ‘Yes.’

‘So, when he walked in on us, you’d already slept with him.’

I covered my face with my hands and nodded.

‘That makes a lot of sense,’ he said. ‘I always had a weird feeling about him.’

I lowered my hands and looked at him, just barely seeing him through the tears that brimmed in my eyes. ‘Aaron, I would have told you, but we agreed not to tell each other about things like this.’

‘I know.’ He rubbed his neck. ‘Regardless, I think you ought to know that during the three years we’ve spent together, I’ve only slept with one other girl.’

My stomach coiled. I didn’t like where this was going. ‘I see.’

He folded his hands between his spread thighs and pressed his lips together. ‘It happened about three months into our arrangement, and it was fucking awful. It felt completely wrong, and that feeling has prevented me from doing it again ever since. And it wasn’t the girl, Cara –she was perfectly sweet.’ He raised his gaze to mine. ‘It was because of you.’

My breath rasped in my throat. Realising what he was implying, I couldn’t bear to hold his gaze anymore.

‘I see,’ I mumbled. ‘I’m sorry, I...I haven’t meant to...’ My lips quivered, and it took all my strength to keep my voice steady. ‘I haven’t meant to affect you like that.’

‘But you have all the same.’

A tear spilled down my cheek, and I hurried to wipe it away. I could feel him watching me, but I just couldn’t return his gaze. I knew it would break me to see how hurt he was.

He sighed. ‘Cara, what I’m trying to say is that during the three years we’ve been sleeping together, I’ve essentially been monogamous. I haven’t minded the idea of you with other men before because I haven’t really known that it was happening. And, every time we’ve met, you’ve been so attuned to me that I’ve found it hard to believe that you could have been like you are with me with somebody else.’

He paused. ‘But I can’t...I can’t overlook this, I can’t ignore it. I can’t pretend like I don’t know this happened the way I could with others, because I’ve seen him, and I know it’s happened, and I can’t get the images out of my head!’

I flinched at his last shout. Was this truly happening?

‘And what makes it even worse,’ he went on, his voice ringing with resentment, ‘is the fact that he’s your fucking boss! You’ll be seeing him nearly every day for the next three months, and from the sound of him on Saturday, he has no intention whatsoever of letting you go. I mean, he said it himself – he’s got feelings for you. I can’t stand that, Cara, I really can’t, and I especially can’t when knowing you’ve fucked him before! More than once, too! You’re obviously attracted to him!’

A sob leaped out of my mouth. Trembling, I screwed my eyes shut and shook my head. I didn’t know what to say. How could I possibly fix this? The future of our friendship looked so bleak suddenly.

‘I don’t think I can do this anymore, I’m sorry,’ he said then, his voice calm and quiet.

It felt like my chest cracked. I couldn’t breathe.

‘The way I see it,’ he continued, ‘we can either upgrade this to an actual relationship – exclusive at that – or we’ll have to settle on being platonic. And, if you decide on the latter, you should know I’ll require some time to move on, so we shouldn’t be in touch for a while.’

Choking with emotion, my whole body shook. I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. He was giving me an ultimatum, and I hadn’t seen it coming. And the worst part was that I didn’t return his feelings. I would have to break his heart, and by doing it, I would break mine too.

‘I-I t-thought you said you w-weren’t interested in relationships right now?’ I said in my confusion. In my mind I was going back to our conversation that day, trying to understand how I could have been so blind as to not foresee this.

‘I said that because I was worried I’d scare you away if I said anything else. I mean, you’ve always been quite vocal about your thoughts on romantic relationships.’

I snuffled and wiped my eyes. I didn’t know what to think, let alone what to say.

I sensed him watching me for a long while until his sigh broke the quiet.

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